Status of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR), Malignancy Grading and Involvement of Axillary Lymph Nodes in Primary Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide. Recently, there is a growing number of prognostic factors in breast cancer. A conceptual framework is now emerging that outlines how certain principles of EGFR may be employed in the future management of patients with breast cancer. In this study, we want to show the status of EGFR and malignancy grading and involvment of axillary lymph nodes in primary breast cancer. In a cross-sectional double-blind study conducted between 2000 and 2003, fifty seven paraffin-embeded blocks from patients with breast cancer were obtained from the pathology department of “Shaheed Mostafa Khomeini” hospital, and 3 micron sections were provided from each one. One of the tumor sections along with a lymph node section were stained by H&E. We determined the size and type of the tumors, numbers of involved axillary lymph nodes and grading according to Nottingham modification of Bloom-Richardson criteria. We studied EGFR on the other sections by IHC. Simultaniously, we studied 10 more parraffin-embeded blocks without breast cancer. There were 89.5% positive versus 10.5% negative cases for EGFR. Majority of patients were in Grade III (43.9%) and a minority were in Grade I (22.8%). 66.7% had axillary lymph nodes involvement. In this study, we did not find significant correlation between EGFR and the involvment of axillary lymph nodes. High expression of EGFR in patients with breast cancer is important to note as a prognostic factor, but further investigations on further specimens and long time follow-up are required to clarify the exact role of EGFR in prognosis of breast cancer.